| Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918. |
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| 34. ‘As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme’ |
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| AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; | |
| As tumbled over rim in roundy wells | |
| Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s | |
| Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; | |
| Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: | 5 |
| Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; | |
| Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, | |
| Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came. | |
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| Í say móre: the just man justices; | |
| Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; | 10 |
| Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— | |
| Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, | |
| Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his | |
| To the Father through the features of men’s faces. | |
| | | See Notes. |
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